Former Girlfriends television show writer and playwright Keith Josef Adkins is leaving the restrictive world of sitcoms to branch out on his own with a new sci-fi web series.

“The Abandon” is Adkins’ latest project filmed in upstate New York. The web series features five men who get together to take a weekend camping trip. However, things go wrong once they leave town. In true sci-fi fashion, the men find out that some disruptive aliens have landed on their home front. After raising $8000 through an Indiegogo crowd-funding campaign, the pilot episode of “The Abandon” was released Christmas Day. Adkins’ team is still producing and fundraising for the series.

In an interview with Colorlines, Adkins’ describes how race played a factor in the development of his sci-fi show — a concept not readily accepted by studio directors fighting for primetime in the big leagues:

“There’s so little representation of black people on TV, period. But even when you think about thrillers and sci-fi and horror, the black person — particularly the black guy — is usually killed off first. So for me, the part of me wanting to put black people central to this story, it’s just to allow, you know, black characters to be central to the story!

… I’m putting myself and the people who I know on-screen. It’s not like I’m literally sitting down and saying ‘I want black people,’ because I don’t always wake up and say ‘Oh, I’m black!’ I’m writing, and that’s the voice I’m writing from.

And for me, because the central characters are all black, it takes race away. When everyone’s black, you’re not worried about who’s black or not. You’re invested in who they are, and in what’s happening to them. That’s my attempt with the series.”

The next episode from Adkins’ series is expected to debut in mid-February.